“It was almost like a burial,” said her mother, Evelyn Alderete, leaving the Family Assistance Center on Manhattan’s West Side, where relatives of people who are still missing in the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center began filing for death certificates, part of an enormous and unprecedented effort to settle the legal affairs of the victims.
Alderete, whose 33-year-old daughter worked on the 83rd floor of the north tower, was among the first to seek a death certificate for a loved one whose remains likely will never be found.
More than 6,000 people are still missing at the World Trade Center, and 300 bodies have been found. Officials and families are beginning to acknowledge that the remains of many of those killed may not be found.
In the absence of physical proof of death, state and city officials have decided to speed up the process of issuing death certificates for the missing. That will allow survivors to quickly receive life insurance and other benefits.
State law normally requires the passage of three years or more before relatives of a missing person can file for a death certificate. Under the emergency procedure, that wait “is going to be reduced in most cases to a few days,” said New York City Deputy Corporation Counsel Steve Fischner.
Officials expect 500 to 600 families per day to file for death certificates, beginning with filing sworn statements about the missing person’s whereabouts on Sept. 11, the day of the attack.
In order to prevent insurance fraud and other abuses, a death certificate is typically required for relatives to collect life insurance benefits or workers’ compensation, execute wills, or to access accounts or stocks.
No physical evidence
Usually, a medical examiner relies on physical evidence–a body or DNA evidence–to grant a death certificate. But because many, if not most, of the victims’ bodies were cremated or crushed at the attack site, such evidence will not be available. Therefore, the state sought a legal way to expedite the process of certification.
“This is an excellent way to allow people to move on with their lives,” said Josh Rubenstein, a New York attorney who until recently headed the trusts and estates group for the New York State Bar Association.
Following the crash in 1996 of TWA Flight 800, New York state amended its law to allow judges to waive the three-year requirement in cases of “specific peril” that left no other explanation for a disappearance.
“Even then, you still had to hire a lawyer, and there was a lot of unknowns. Now they have gotten rid of that whole procedure,” Rubenstein said.
Historically, exceptions also were made for some families seeking benefits and accounts owed to Holocaust victims. Legal experts agree that this is the first example of the process being expedited wholesale for so many cases.
While families of those who were employed at the trade center or who were on the manifest of a hijacked plane will have a fairly easy time establishing the legitimacy of their claim, a more difficult process may await relatives of tourists, visitors to the buildings, undocumented workers or those who rushed to the scene to help.
In those cases, family members may face a hearing.
“There are going to be people who legitimately died there and are going to have a hard time because they were commuting or they were delivering coffee from a local coffee shop,” he said.
Even without a death certificate, insurance companies in New York are beginning to process claims on the basis of an affidavit, according to an order by state regulators.
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A similar waiver will likely be adopted by insurance companies nationwide, said Herb Perone, spokesman for the Washington-based American Council of Life Insurers.
“Even so, we will still be looking for other things to corroborate the claims: office calendars, flight manifest, and so on. … You don’t want to invite fraud.”
High-profile disasters occasionally have been fodder for abuse.
In February, a judge in the state of Washington dismissed two cases brought against the families of victims of an Alaska Airlines crash off the California coast last year.
False claim debunked
The claims, brought on behalf of two Guatemalan families, had contended that two passengers fathered Guatemalan children who were now eligible for a portion of their estates and any settlements. DNA tests proved no connection between the victims and the children.
Nevertheless, legal experts said they expect few fraudulent claims from the trade center attack.
“There is always a threat of attempted fraud, but I don’t think you can let that stand in your way,” said professor Kenneth Joyce, an expert on trusts at the University of Buffalo Law School.
At the Family Assistance Center in Manhattan, battalions of city lawyers and volunteer attorneys awaited claimants, who were asked to provide names, addresses, dates of birth and work information about victims.
The interviews, most lasting about 30 minutes, also included a question about what efforts the families have made to locate their loved ones.
“That’s the most difficult question,” said Adam Golden, a volunteer attorney. “They want to confirm that all reasonable efforts have been made to find a person before they issue the death certificate.”
Some families tearfully recalled phone calls from the burning twin towers. Some families also brought copies of fliers they had posted throughout Manhattan during their vain searches for the missing.
One woman brought a framed picture of her lost loved one and placed it on the desk in front of the lawyer, Golden recalled.
One family’s experience
Leaving the center, relatives of Wilder Alfredo Gomez, a bartender at Windows on the World, the restaurant that once capped one of the twin towers, recounted their interview.
The family said they were asked a variety of questions: What time did Gomez, 37, leave for work on Sept. 11? What time did he usually arrive to work?
Like many grieving relatives, the process of filing for a death certificate left Gomez’s aunt, Rosario Piedrahita, with mixed emotion: the prospect of financial aid but little other solace.
“Money cannot bring back someone you love back to life,” she said.